and despair, also images of what has followed. coming together and compassion. rebuilding and, of course, remembering. ♪ welcome to this special edition of "the dylan ratigan show." good afternoon to you. it has been ten years as we all know since the worst terror attack in our nation. well, today this friday before the anniversary of 9/11 we face yet another terror threat against our nation. six pages of it. washington and new york, as you and i speak this afternoon, on high alert right now after a specific and credible but unconfirmed threat. we'll find out what that means in a second from from our guests. originated possibly from al

qaeda, possibly with car bombs. a lot of possibles in this. a manhunt is under way and security checkpoints in full effect throughout the city of new york and washington, d.c. a u.s. source saying in pakistan that two or three wannabe terrorists may have flown into america. some using u.s. passports. >> we cannot confirm it. we are doing everything with our power. all hands are on deck. >> you don't mess with this country when you attack us. we made clear that when that happens, we will come and get you. >> since the attacks, 6,234 u.s. troops have been killed in iraq and afghanistan. more than double the number that per issued on 9/11 itself. we, of course, have spent more than $1.3 trillion dollars since that fateful day on war and global anti-terror efforts. for more on the developing story this afternoon we begin with lieutenant corner anthony

schaeffer, afghan effort and received a bronze star and on breaking news on this specific threat in new york and d.c. for nbc, wnbc's chief investigative reporter and a man i point out to all of you as one of the better investigative journalists working in broadcast television today. jonathan. quickly what do you know? >> talk toed about three men. the fbi and security officials unclear if these three men even exist. as a precaution because of this threat, tip, this information that came from that pakistan region they're running around concerned that maybe there is some legitimacy to this, some credibility. >> no documentation of specific man on specific airplanes or specific documentation? none of that. >> nothing. except for the word of this informant, who has been credible in the past. so they're running around and as a precaution, what do you do? in bin laden's compound after he was killed they found documents saying i want to strike on the

anniversary of 9/11. now another piece of threat information, hey, maybe their guy is coming here to do that? what do you do? you have to protect the public, put the information out there, respond. perhaps the wording of the way this threat warning was put out there, you know, credible, but uncorroborated. i don't -- >> trying to figure that out ten years, tony. what does that mean? >> well i think they've thrown in the kitchen sink and everything else in, too. remember here basically this fits the pattern of lg al qaeda's new operational methodology. a friend of mine publisheding book "the next wave" passport holder, green cards, gain access to our country easily. with that said, there's nothing linking this methodology at this point that acan see from reporting that says this guy, these guys, are the ones actually doing it. the problem with this, in my mind it's very clear. you don't want to do it often. this is almost like crying wolf.

we'll see. at this point, i don't see anything you can take and say i've got to do x, y, z based on this report. >> that is a question that reoccurred to all of us and i suspect everyone watching the show and experiencing the warnings. on the one hand, if this exists, i would like to be informed of this existing and be able to adapt in some way to protect myself. on the other hand, i don't want to feel that i'm being injected into a, an incredible fearful state for ambiguous reasons, because somebody else doesn't really know what's going on. creating the cry wolf scenario. is there any -- this has gone back to george bush in green, red, yellow orange. we got rid of the colors and we're doing this with these reports. what is the mechanism? is there a protocol for issues terror threats and what is the threshold and who sets it? >> i think here in the city it's a case-by-case basis. we saw the mayor and the fbi

come out and they put it in context and said, look. trying to run it down. we don't think you should change your lifestyle and plans but you need to know this and you can make your choice. we're going to do everything we can to protect you and run this down, but we know -- >> in this case, the mayor of new york sets the threshold for -- >> they were briefed following homeland -- >> does homeland security set the threshold? in other words, a decision was played to communicate. with the media, with the people, at some point by somebody. >> to me this may be an overcompensation. this is how i'm looking at it. the last two attacks, facade in times square, the underwear bomber. look back at that, great forensics rapidly. we knew with 24 hour all the pieces out there. >> the car bomb, where he got the propane tank? >> the problem it wasn't anticipatory. we've changed process after 9/11. people changed the rules. the culture remains dogged. a lot of -- despite the fact they are supposed to shire

information, they don't always, this may be an overcompensation saying, by gosh, we're going get it all out there and have people be aware. frankly, everybody today -- i was walking around here in new york before i came in. anytime a motorcycle backfires everybody takes not now. i'm not sure if that's good or bad but it's made people nor ale more alert of things around them. >> what if they didn't tell us and something happened? not forgivable. the at least you can do, put it out there, we can make our own choices and then do the best to protect us. >> that rationale resonates, i totally understand. at the same time, you and i and everybody else understands the risk you incur by inflating the fear machine, not on purpose, because you're attempting to do this, creating the cry wolf liability when there ultimately is a threat you get a diminished response because people have been through the cycle so many times. >> the theft of information perhaps on its own, isolation

may not have warranted as much as attention as it's gotten. remember the week and time we're in. we have a ten-year anniversary happening here. thousands of people coming to ground zero. the president, a former president. i don't think you can take any chances. >> not only that, the media is located in new york. it's a threat on the people who work in the media, which tends to get more -- the earthquake in d.c., an earthquake the size of the earthquake in d.c. if a couple weeks ago that didn't occur in d.c. and new york would not have been covered wall to wall by new york media, when it's around us, we're more prone to it as well. financial media, political, et says ra. >> this is -- we need to look at future threats, which can do greater damage. for example, last night we had san diego and arizona in the dark because of one single mistake. i work with america looking at threats, there are things we don't understand how to stop. terrorists understand that, too. we can look at it every day but we have to get ahead of them. where we're not doing as well as we should. we need 0 look how, wall street,

all of these thing, here. terrorists understand our vulnerabilities. now that they have the next generation onboard understand us better than ever how to hurt us even worse. >> going through cloud computer, power grids, this type of stuff. >> right. we have to look past the simple car bombings and look deecher into the threat. they're going to adapt. almost ten years between world trade center to 2001. adapting, smarter, we have to start focusing. >> quickly, who is in charge of that? the president? homeland security secretary? what are we doing on this? >> you've got a -- you have secretary of homeland security, janet napolitano. you've got the director of cia, panetta, getting intel coming in. the fbi. all of these organizations plus the pentagon. >> and nypd. >> and nypd -- >> it's own independent free-standing army. >> pretty much. not a bad thing avlgts great thing. not just as a new yorker but the nature of the -- >> the problem.

we've layered things. we have to look at how this layering helped us? i met with a 9/11 commission a few years ago and talked what the 9/11 commission envisioned is not what happened. they didn't want layering. they want the integration shari sharing. we're not there yet and have things we need to be worried about. >> in this case, skepticism about this threat. they haven't ruled it out. they're still running around. maybe the source is credible and right. until they know they have a job to do and need to do it and they're running around. until they can true in, rule it out, get through the weekend, pumped up security. >> not only do they have a job, we have a job to do that across the board anybody who is involved in any of this, meaning if you are a citizen of new york are off d.c. or a member of any community organization, whether it's the media, church, anything else, if you know there's a potential threat, it goes to say something, which i know is not

as simple as it gets, but seems to be one of the most effective anti-terrorist events known to man. thank you for helping me and the oughtians as well. up next, hear the symbol of a nation in a world changed forever and the reason we even have homeland security. live at ground zero on a beautiful late summer afternoon right after this. let's design a vacation on a bumake it work.edia. see what anandra did? booking her flight and hotel at the same time a serious money-saving maneuver. book it! major wow factor! where you book matters. expedia. [ cat meows ] ♪ [ acoustic guitar: pop ] [ woman ] ♪ i just want to be okay ks ] ♪ be okay, be okay ♪ i just want to be okay today - ♪ i just want to know today - [ whistles ] ♪ know today, know today

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it has been nearly ten years, you know this, since the twin towers fell from the new york skyline and the world. the people in those buildings that perished cause all of us to continue to reflect on the loved ones who were lost. remember those we knew and honor the heroes who paid the ultimate price in trying to address the crisis. nbc's peter alexander at the heart of it on an absolutely beautiful late summer afternoon in lower manhattan. hi, peter. >> reporter: dylan, good to visit given the weather over the course of this week. it's fitting on the anniversary of the tenth anniversary, the heavens are shine on this location. so many loved ones that lost their lives here at ground zero returning this weekend to pay respects to those lost on that day. a live picture. give you a better sense what the location looks like today. for many they're getting a first chance to see it in its new form. right there you can see the reflecting pools. that's one of the two built in place of the two towers that fell. 234is is just the south tower

site. around it, that dark rim to it where these waterfalls fall 30 feet that is engraved with the names of all the victims lost on that day. revealed when the families get their first chance to see it on sunday, and then opens the public -- to the public officially on monday, 20129/11. only one tree remains on the ground zero site. the one oak tree that survived, the survivor tree that survived in the rubble on that day there. you see the second reflecting pool. art, our am cameraman. known as freedom tower but now known at one world trade center. you see the remarkable site. revealed at roughly 9:03 today. the same time the second plane hit the south tower back ten years ago. unif you wered by the workers here. many of whom will not be here for the events of this weekend,

and wanted to participate in honoring those lives lost. so it's a pool, to honor the dead. this building in many ways honors the lives of the living. it will chloe to be the largest pild building in the united states of america. 1,706 feet. the freedom tower. we call this location ground zero. the maybe michael bloomberg made it clear over the course of the week he'd like to put in many ways that name to bed. it has a negative connotation. this is the world trade center site and new york is back in business. you get a live look what is a spectacular day in advance of so many dignitaries arriving over the course of the week. among them, president barack obama here sunday as events begin at 8:40 a.m. and the former president, george w. bush. the former player of the city, rudy jewel joe giuliani. the former mayor. george pataki, and present

governor michael bloomberg as well. >> joined with a couple of guests tied by their loss ten years ago and more importantly their work since then, focusing on educating all the rest of us and most importantly, our young people to these events. i am proud to welcome back to this show edi, co-founder of the relief fund and author of "an unbroken bond." there's the book. and lee from the september 11th family association. nice to see both of you again. the last time we spoke, it became an impassioned conversation about the desperate need for education specifically around 9/11 more broadly, globally, suches that the more educate wed are the less likely we all come to kill each other. where do we stand with that? >> we stand at zero. we've had a great opportunity to speak last week with governor cuomo, who is now taking a strong stance on education.

and he doesn't like curriculum. that's our regions people but he is going to promote it to the regions people who express the need we need to educate. we should be the first state in respect still is zero states that have in type of curriculum to talk about that history. >> talk about your book for a second, edi. it's being described in flattering terms, most specifically one of the notice realistic and continued portrayal. not just a book about that day. this is a book about the experience and the consequences that followed. >> exactly. it's a journey of ten years. i think that what's contained in it it's going to have a lot of relevance going forward even past that ten year, and it really is a private look into what was a very public event. people think know know what happened and they don't. i'll give you a very easy example. most people don't know that nowhere down at the world trade

center memorial does it say september 11, 2001, anywhere. and so that's -- you know, that's like a little bit of information that nobody knows. most people, because they're looking at what they're looking at now forget at one point this memorial will be completely under ground. so there's a lot that's gone on, and there are so many lessons that we still need to learn. talk about education with lee. had i finished writing the book, there were 2,000 schools that another organization that has put together a curriculum program did to educate our children about 9/11. only one was a public school in new york city. out of those 2,000 schools that had cruurriculum prap programs only one from the new york area. >> why do you think that? why do you think there's such a

slow response rate? >> we talk about complacency. get past that. we're never going to be anything other than half complacency, such a beautiful country, never attacked before. why education is so critical. we know what's happened today, under severe threat. are we going to be afraid to talk about radical islamic fundamentalists as opposed to good muslim people? there's so many good -- but we're afraid to use those words. it's nots coming out of my mouth. we're afraid to use it. if we continue down that road not explaining to the world about this small fraction called radical islamic fundamentalists, well, slam on us. we can only give ray kelly this beautiful job of his here, doing a great job, but they're going to slip. some place the terrorists are going slip into this country and that doesn't make any sense to me. >> a professor at nyu on earlier this week who hit exactly the point you just made. which is, we refuse to talk

about radical islam. people with islam refuse to talk about it, because they don't want to be seen at alienating inside their own community. liberals and the leftees, if you will, don't want to talk about it, they don't want to be seen as a bigot or racist and the right wing doesn't want to talk about it, because they're invested in the fear of all islam, and as result, no differentiation. whatever your view is, it's clear that a less fearful and more honest analysis of threats and behavior is in order, and education will be the only pathway to that. fair? >> absolutely. >> that's right. >> look at peter king. i mean, he stepped up to the blat. he's not afraid to talk about it. he's not putting good muslim people in the same group. he's just understand the fact that you do. we need to educate our young people. globally. this doesn't -- >> the vast majority of muslims by the way and non-muslims.

>> absolutely. >> the danger, because of the, what we're talking about, everybody. i want to talk about the ceremony a second. a lot of talk about who's not going to this. >> it's unbelievable to me. >> what's going on? >> that, look -- the priorities for this administration was to get this memorial open for the ten year anniversary. because the construction all around it, there's only a certain number of people, i guess, they feel they can safely have at the memorial. and so the choices they've made are, to my mind's eye inappropriate. i mean, somebody made a great statement to me the other day. they said, you know, the firemen and the police officers weren't invited to 9/11 but they came anyway. and that's only looking at the uniform services people. i have three people, and i talk about them in my book, that survived. they're burn victims. they're not allowed to be there,

because they're survivors. i have people who were in the lobby, who were in the elevators who saw their colleagues and friends and family members die, and unless you're an immediate family, you're not allowed to be there. that is not a memorial service. that is not the opening of a memorial service. >> i'm running out of time. converted into a political event? in other words, is it just powerful people who are friends with the mayor and the president who are at this thing? >> i hope not. >> am i too cynical? >> i hope not. >> i hope not. >> maybe it's because we have so many powerful people coming here and they're worried about protecting them. i spent my -- working with the most beautiful men and women you'd of want 0 work with. not just firemen and cops. i worked with volunteers from all over this beautiful country of ours. i worked with chaplains. can't tell you how many were at the site every single solitary bay. gave their heart to us, our city.

now, i don't want to get into the political end of this, but these people deserve their day here. you know. maybe some will want to come become, but i can't tell you how many phone calls i've gotten. they want to come on the tenth anniversary. they were part of this. >> of course they do. >> they found many of the people from the 658 that were lost in cantor and on and on and now they're not able to come here and just -- give their respects? that doesn't -- it does make sense to me. >> there's a lot in this process that doesn't make a lot of sense, and it's one of the main reasons that i wrote "an unbroken bond" was because you see little snippets of things as events occur, and we talk about them in the media, but you don't see it all put together. you know? and usually when you write a memoir, it does have a lot of footnotes at the end, but this one does. >> a continuous narrative from the past ten years takes us

forward. i really appreciate that. >> thank you so much. >> thanks to both of you. >> you as well. >> lee and edie. weeg take a break. more 9/11 coverage after this. newtons fruit thins, one unique cookie. her morning begins with arthritis pain. that's a coffee and two pills. the afternoon tour begins with more pain and more pills. the evening guests arrive. back to sore knees. back to more pills. the day is done but hang on... her doctor recommended aleve. just 2 pills can keep arthritis pain away all day with fewer pills than tylenol. this is lara who chose 2 aleve and fewer pills for a day free of pain. and get the all day pain relief of aleve in liquid gels.

i am sending this congress a plan that you should pass right away. >> you should pass this job plans right away. >> pass this bill. >> pass this jobs bill. >> this plan is the right thing to do right now. >> you should pass it. >> i don't about you, i think we got the message anyway. breaking briefly from our 9/11 coverage to cover our president's latest jobs pitch to congress and the nation. was it really just another cover-up plan? one tlap avoids solving the underlying tax trade and banking problems that have assailed our nation for now well in excess of ten years? our friday mega panel krystal

ball, toure and ari all here. obviously i'm a critic, noechbl not only of the president and the congress, but with that said, anything you heard you felt was at least better than anything else you heard? >> yes. actually, i was prechtly surprised by this proposal. you know i agree with you in terms of fundamental reforms. this does not address the fundamental issues facing our country but it's a proposal worth supporting because it gets us out of the negative feedback cycle we've been in. it gets people back to work at the state and local level, which is critical. spending on infrastructure we need. it gets things going and we need that. >> in a nutshell, doesn't solve the structure but a good looking band-aid? t. is. gets us going. we need that. >> we could use one. we're bleeding. go ahead. >> look, the plan is good. that's what i care about. the speech aggressive. this that. the plan inside this speech is good. it's not great and not perfect,

but it is stimulative, although he didn't actually use that word because polling says you should call it something else. again, i don't care what you call it. but will it pass? probably not in this form. is this the right time? no. so for all of those practical reasons, good plan, but not a very encouraging environment. >> right. and the facts of the matter is we're going to have weeks and months to discuss this very topic, and so i'm going to return to the news of the day, if you will, toure. and you're going to come along a little later with a rant and talk about all the grist of the 9/11 coverage. even the news. day. it's not news. this is, like, just -- remembrances of feelings long ago. >> you know i disagree with you, is the news is the reopening of the world -- one world trade site. >> on monday. >> i thought were you going to say the reopening of the wound of 9/11. >> no. maybe view viewers thought that, trying to anticipate my words as you do. those were not actually the words that left my mouth.

>> no. >> the news is the reopening of the site, and the obviously convergence of the people to do that. i don't disagree with your accession. we'll save that for the rant. an interesting dynamic, however, here journalistically caused by this, anybody looking for an angle. right? one of the angles that has come up which i think is more interesting than the others what if 9/11 had never happened? gitmo wouldn't have opened. we wouldn't have invaded afghanistan. >> we'd be able to get on a plane -- >> we wouldn't have homeland security. >> wouldn't have the fearmongering that has dominated the last ten years that anybody at any time for security reasons, and can do anything after you say that enter a building, get on a plane, whatever. it's for security reasons. so that's why i have to give you my cell phone? what good is that going to do? >> i thought it used to be, because i was black.

now all of a sudden do it to everybody. do it to black men in harm let me -- harlem, now everybody's got to do it. >> if 9/11 hadn't happened, we wouldn't all be black. >> that's true. look at me. >> look at me. >> i'm not totally sure that that's the case. it's easy to say we wouldn't have invaded iraq. would not have invaded -- that's what i was going to say. i think the vice president had already determined he wanted to invade iraq. >> right. >> you know, i don't know. was it only a matter of time until we lost that sort of innocence and went to this more security-minded war on terror approach? to me that's an open question. i don't know if it may have been inevitable we had to take -- i'm not sure. >> 9/11 was the catalyst for change, but that the change was coming anyway, whether it was this 9/11 catalyst or some other event. >> something else. i think probably entirely possible. >> without an america on america, which fundamentally changed how we thought about america, you couldn't have

pushed through these reforms in security and just basic sort of human rights and civil rights with america that, to get on the plane, that sort of thing. you couldn't -- >> just like -- if we do that -- the deterioration, always thought it was interesting and perplexing, the idea i'm going to approach toure or krystal or ari and say i want to make you more secure. i'm leer here to help you. what i'm going to do as a result, diminish your rights. i think there's something counterintuitive. the point you're making. which is, how is it that by taking away his rights, by taking away your rights and her rights and my rights and the audience's rights, that that can create safety? >> and we -- >> right. >> buy this. we think this is a good idea. yes, we absolutely must do this. give the government everything they need. >> because you could be saved. >> yes. >> and you know i must say i had a good old-fashioned tsa

pat-down this morning. >> congratulations. >> but i completely agree with everything you're saying and it's obviously very lard to say, what would have happened if it hadn't happened but i will say this -- we are living now in an era of black swan events. things you would never expect to happen. >> very bad things. >> things you would never predict happening, happening. 9/11 was what we experienced causing security. i'm not sure if it hadn't happened another experience wouldn't have taken us to this same place. >> the real tragedy is that we have a bipartisan consensus around the security state. i don't know about going back to 2001, but i can say to you compared to, say, 2004, in the middle of the bush era i would have thought that the rejection of his presidency, which did occur by the end of his second term. >> '08, right. >> would have substantive repercussions. >> security? >> right. dylan, you mentioned guantanamo. we had an election with a

nominee saying no to guantanamo and coming in on the first day saying i'm going to shut it down. it's only fair to point out while running on that we have a president in obama who has not shut guantanamo down. a congress that got in his way of doing that. >> and a congress that got elected promising to, a take on the security and democrats in '06 and '08 who perp pech waited security. >> look at the action, not words, action on guantanamo from democrats, action on the national surveillance stake, what is most disturbing to me on the set of issues is that actually it has been ratified now twice by both parties. that is something i frankly was more optistic about in seeing the public rejection and then that i think is going to be a big problem. >> we talked about the reauthorization of the patriot act on this program. frankly, it didn't get a lot of coverage and not a lot of pushback against it. >> interesting. we're going to have to wrap this on time, but we talk so much

about the division, the democratics and republicans. unanimous consent kweth whether on the security state, banking systems, trade agreements, whether on the tax code, all of these things, seems like the things that trurly are affecting us are things that we have very little debate on and the things most pro vauk tib for the political process and the media and sort of the lizard brain, gay marriage and all this, obviously occupy a lot of the space. a momentary break. still ahead what we no and what most of us do not know about the day that changed america.

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events of 9/11 as we all have

our recollections, in my case i was hosting a live morning television show for bloomberg television here in new york. bloomberg was and still is an exclusively finance-driven media company. and as the e-mails started to cascade on to my bloomberg instant messenger live on the broadcast set, the same one that sits here with the blumberg terminal. messages from friends and old sources in the buildings. as the minutes ticked by and the information continued to pour in, it quickly became apparent to me and those around me that the events that i would witness and narrate on television those events were taking the lives of a number of old friends and close sources. in the two years following those events i moved to a home that i still live in today. it's about six blocks north of ground zero.

at this point in my career i was working for cnbc. my job had me commuting by foot. i like to walk. down to the new york stock exchange each day. i would walk to the exchange each morning, and peer through the fences to see whether that gigantic hole was still in the ground. and for most of the past decade, it was. in 2009, i began working here at msnbc. and my commute no longer had me walking past ground zero every day. but i have continued and do continue to live and shop for groceries and other things only a few blocks away from the site that we're covering. weekends come as a reminder to me and my neighbors of what happened to this community, our country and our world on that day. in the most recent years the hole in the ground began to close and we have started to see the emergence of life once again

at that previously scorched earth. witnessing all of this has been painful, but now comes with glimmers of hope. so now we can only hope that as the earth at ground zero begins to heal so, too, will the psychological scars on our nation, ourselves, and the rest of the world. we're back after this. than many other allergy medications. omnaris. omnaris, to the nose! did you know nasal symptoms like congestion can be caused by allergic inflammation? omnaris relieves your symptoms by fighting inflammation. side effects may include headache, nosebleed, and sore throat. i tossed those allergy symptoms out of my party. [ man ] omnaris. ask your doctor. battling nasal allergy symptoms? omnaris combats the cause. get omnaris for only $11 at omnaris.com.

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well, this weekend thousands will gather at ground seer toe remember the 3,000 americans who lost their lives on 9/11, a decade later there are still many out there who wonder whether we've gotten the full story. new information surfacing about a saudi family, for instance, living in florida linked to the 9/11 mastermind. former senator co-chair of the 9/11 commission says the saudis were facilitating and assisting some of the hijackers. my suspicion, providing some assistance to most if not all of the hijackers. our next guest, anthony summers and robin swan wroeft "the 11th day" the full story of 9/11 and osama bin laden is a comprehensive look back at the day that changed america forever. we all know the attention focus and afghanistan, pakistan, iraq, a lot of places. very little attention in the aftermath or in the past decade focused on saudi arabia. you broke the story yesterday

about this florida family. the hijackers were largely from sewa saudi arabia and largely funded through saudi arabian channels. what do we know about saudi arabia's involvement with these events? >> what we know rather more than we used to know. during the first the official investigations. that was the congressional inquiry in late 2002, the fbi withheld for a long time information that involved saudis who had supported the first two future hijackers to arrive in the united states. that was as early as the millennium. 20 months before 9/11. the congressional investigation stumbled on it themselves and then found themselves locked in a bitter fight with the bureau to get the information out. and at the end of their work, the president bush personally ordered that the last 28 pages of the congressional inquiry

report would be withheld, and we know from sources that -- we know that it involved the question of foreign support for the perpetrators of 9/11. and we know from sources that that support came in the view of the investigators for the congressional group from saudi arabia. what i've put together in the last week or so going back to an old counterterrorism contact has been to develop a story indicating that there was almost a mirror image of the california situation in west florida, that the hijackers had come and gone from a gated community where a named saudi couple lived. >> we are hugely oil dependent on saudi arabia. they are our -- our oil dealer of last resort. the central bank of oil. right? it's said they have so much of

it. because it's easy to get out of the ground and easy for us to burn, we also are the big arms dealer for saudi arabia. >> uh-huh. >> so saudi arabia gives us lots of business on the military side. it's easy to look at this information and think, so we're attacking afghanistan, iraq, all of these other places, which may have very well harbored, i'm not suggesting there wasn't valid reason for afghanistan, whatever it is, but it's befuddled why it is there has not been aniest to engage saudi arabia for not only their role in these events that we're commemorating again today, but the nature of american ongoing dependent relationship with a nation that clearly played a role in these attacks, one way or the other. whether at a government level or private wealth, i don't even care. >> well, it's more complicated than a government and nongovernmental issue.

it's groups with that government supporting al qaeda while other groups are actually very pro-western. while the evidence suggests that there may have been a support network and perhaps funding for al qaeda, people with the saudi government talk about the fact they were closely surveilling the al qaeda operative and why didn't the u.s. intelligence agencies listen to them, take their advice? so it's very difficult to know without the release of things like the 28 pages that anthony just mentioned, the joint congressional committee came up with, where those stories interlock. were they surveilling the hijackers? was it an intelligence mission gone awry, or was it the more simple explanation, saudi fundamentalists support channeling money and other kinds of support to the hijackers themselves. the question that occurs to me is whether the confusion, if you will, inside of the nature of

the saudi relationship with the terrorists, with america, all of these things, the inability to clearly define that, how much did that contribute to the desire to scapegoat iraq? which was an easier mark than trying to deal with the complex nature of analyzing saudi arabia? >> very much so. i mean, you had president bush in the knowledge two days after the 9/11 attacks, in the knowledge that 15 of the 19 hijackers had been saudi, receiving the saudi ambassador at the white house, embracing him, saying, hello, prince, your highness or whatever and smoking a cigar with him on the truman balcony as if there was nothing wrong. this year when we wanted to use a photograph, a white house photograph of that, the former president's office tried to intervene to stop us using the picture. he was very sensitive about that

relationship, of protecting the relationship with the saudis. >> personally? vested and protected relationship? >> personally but i think more than that. that short word, o-i-l. with the oil investment question was more important, perhaps, than the truth to the american people. >> i'm going to leave it on that note. full story of september 11th"real pleasure to have you both here. appreciate it. congratulations on finishing the book and having the courage to try to introduce a critical new information to this dialogue. thank you. >> thank you. next, toure back with his thoughts on what's become a yearly ritual of reliving 9/11.

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i know his thoughts on the tenth anniversary. our friends toure. >> we are once again in the midst of the 9/11 nostalgia mill, the annual ritual where print and television media churn out remember brans and images of 9/11. this year the tenth anniversary an extra intensity. more pages, more tv time devoted to it as if there's a going out of business sale on 9/11 memories. i can almost see some immediatiest telling troops the tenth anniversary of the ap apocalypse. let's unload the vaults. it's weirding me out. we must remember the valiance ones on the plane, encrusted and

courageous first respond toers went into areas most humans would run from and never came out. when i see those car window stickers that say never forget and show an image of the towers i want to salute. but this media 9/11 nostalgia isn't the same. is it about remembering the dead or like a car crash gawking situation? is it like, when people would come to new york and want to see ground zero as if the wreckage was some sort of tourist site? i refuse to take visiting friends to ground zero to see the massive hole in the ground. it's not a tourist site. a place where many people and a part of america died. the america i lived in before that morning, before planes met towers, no longer exist in my mind or in anyone else's. we've changed in fundamental ways. we can no lock longer a nation would never be attacked on no longer feel totally free moving through america. keeping one eye out for the next

shoe to drop, for the next attack to come. we've been remaining vigilant because we're on the verge of another attack, we've been told that so many times i'm numb to it. like the government is the boy who cried wolf. the america me and you died on 9/11 replaced by a nation mistrustful of its own citizens. when you go to the airport we're guilty until proven harmless, which can only be proven by getting naked and being x-rayed or intimately padded down. a nation comfortable hating all of islam and mochks built with a certainly proximity with ground zero and by that i mean with the proximity of the united states. and the where were you when the planes hit stuff? remember that crazy day stuff? like we're in aa telling each other our stories. i know it's traumatic. i'm a knonew yorker and smellede smoke days after. are we doing this for a good human reason like to heal the

wounds that remain? or is it a tool to get people to watch and read, because fear sells and wallowing in the deep pool of 9/11 pain is good for business? >> i agree with you. it's an interesting situation. because i just did an hour show on 9/11. >> do the people want it, or do we want to give it to them? >> i don't know that there's an answer to that question that i have. it may exist. i don't know it. >> i mean, if you do the show -- >> i do, however -- think that at least in the our case, and it's easy to think that, that we try to have a conversation in a way that moves things forward. whether it's the education, with lee and edie and that sort of thing, but i am hopeful that your words go to -- i'm not even going to bother. we'r